


Ignorance Isn't Always Bliss

by monroe_militia



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-26 05:13:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1675988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monroe_militia/pseuds/monroe_militia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a traumatic accident, Bass Monroe lands himself in a mental hospital due to creating a coping mechanism of an alternate world where all of the electricity has turned off. Can he be rescued from his delusions?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Rachel)

Rachel Matheson did not want to be here. She did not want to be walking into this mental hospital while her boyfriend was lying in a regular one. She’d already been here a few times before and had ended up regretting it each time. Why did she think that there was any chance that she could get through to Bass when he was caught up in his sick and twisted delusions?

If it weren’t for Miles, she wouldn’t even bother trying. Sure, she felt bad for Bass, but she was also afraid of him like this. She was certain that he was a lost cause… And yet here she was.

She took a deep breath and braced herself before stepping into Bass’s room.

As she entered the room, he stood up and made a grand gesture around the room as if it were something impressive and not just a room filled with white- White walls, white chairs, white bedding, white everything to match his white clothes.

“Hello, Rachel. I trust that you’re enjoying the accommodations here?” He asked in a snide tone as a smug look crossed his face. “You may be a prisoner here, but I think that if you just cooperate that you’ll find that you could live better than most of the republic does.”

“What republic?” Rachel asked in an admittedly less than friendly tone. “The one that you made up in your head? …Well I think it’s about time that you finally snap out of it because Miles is awake.”

Bass didn’t seem to hear her, or even acknowledge her, as he took a step dangerously close to her. It was amazing that he could somehow manage to look that intimidating while dressed in the all-white uniform of a mental institution with wild bed-head and bags under his eyes that made it look like he hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep total in the last month… Or maybe that was exactly what made him look so scary.

“…Or, if you want to continue to refuse when asked to cooperate,” Bass continued. “You won’t just be going back to your cell-”

“If anyone is in a cell, it’s you,” Rachel tried to interrupt, but he just kept on talking as if he hadn’t heard a word that she had said… Probably because he hadn’t, not really anyways.

“No, I’ve got a much better punishment in store for you, _Rachel_ ,” The word came out like poison on his tongue before a sinister smirk crossed his features.

“What happened to you, Bass?” Rachel asked in a raised voice, trying to somehow get through to him although she had known that even the tiniest glimmer of hope was gone after he hadn’t even shown a glimmer of recognition towards reality when she had told him that his best friend was awake. “Even when you first came here, when you first started to lose it, you still weren’t like this. You weren’t sadistic.”

“I have Danny, Rachel. And if you don’t start giving me the answers that I’ve been looking for, then I’m going to torture your son until you wish that he had never been born because at least then he wouldn’t have to live through the consequences of _your_ actions!” By the time that he finished this threat, Bass was shouting as he pointed his finger at her to emphasize his words.

Rachel felt tears springing to her eyes and brought a hand up to cover her mouth in shock as a choked sobbing sound emerged from her throat.

“You bastard.” She said, shaking her head back and forth in disbelief before she was unable to hold back a scream of anger. “You _bastard_!! You know that-” Her voice cracked as tears ran down her cheeks. “You _know_ that Danny was stillborn! Just like you know what that did to me… Just like you know that it ended my marriage with Ben. Don’t you _dare_ use him against me… Don’t you dare!!!”

A nurse who had heard the yelling and commotion came running into the room and quickly asked, “What’s going on in here? Is everything alright?”

“I was just leaving,” Rachel said weakly turning and exiting the room without so much as a glance back. It wasn’t until she was out of the room that she stopped to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

* * *

 

When she got back to the hospital, Rachel found Miles struggling to stay awake as he smiled at her from his hospital bed.

“Good, you’re back,” he told her. “Other than Ben stopping by for a few minutes, I haven’t had any visitors. Honestly, I’m surprised that Bass hasn’t come by yet trying to sneak in beer for me or something.”

Rachel forced a smile onto her lips, not wanting Miles to find out about Bass’s condition so soon after waking up from the coma that he had been in for months.

“You should get some sleep, you can barely keep your eyes open,” She told him.

“I took a four month power-nap, I think that I can handle staying awake for a few minutes longer,” he commented with a teasing smirk, which immediately fell when he saw the worried look on her face. “What is it?”

“What’s what?” She asked innocently.

“I know you, Rachel. What are you worried about me finding out?” Miles asked in a concerned tone. “Is it about Bass? …He’s alright after the accident isn’t he? I mean you would have told me if-”

He couldn’t even make himself say the words that were weighing on his mind.

_-you would have told me if he was dead, wouldn’t you?_

“No, no. He’s alive,” Rachel told him, although her tone still wasn’t overly reassuring. “He’s just…” she struggled for a moment to find the right words. “…Different since the crash.”

“Different how?” Miles asked, much more alert than he had been when she had first entered the room.


	2. (Miles)

“The thing that you have to remember is that even though it’s only been months to us, in his head, Sebastian’s been living in these delusions for over a decade. I’ll warn you now, it isn’t going to be easy to try and talk him out of his delusions. And be careful, lately the world in his head has been deteriorating into a paranoid delusion. He’s suspicious that everyone is out to get him and on more than one occasion we’ve had to sedate him when he was becoming violent with the other patients.”

“I don’t understand,” Miles told the doctor. “I get that after the accident that he would want to escape reality, but I don’t understand why he would want a world where he’s some kind of killer dictator. How is the idea of having killed so many people better than having accidentally killed one girl in a car accident?”

“In the start, he wasn’t a killer in this world. He was trying to help the world get some order. He created his delusion as somewhere where he would have power and control and somewhere where he would still have you,” The doctor explained. “I believe that the deaths in his delusions, as well as you leaving him in them, was a manifestation of his guilt, but that world was still easier for him to live in. It was easier for him to cope with becoming a monster in a world where you had left him, than in one where he thought that he had killed you. The delusions didn’t set in until after he found out that there was a good chance that you wouldn’t wake up from your coma.”

* * *

 

Miles wasn’t sure exactly what to expect when he walked into Bass’s room, but what he did see made his heart drop in his chest.

Bass was sitting on the floor next to his bed in the fetal position with his back leaning against the bed leg and his face in his hands.

As Miles looked around the room, he thought to himself that if he had to live in a room like this that he would probably think up an alternate reality to escape in too.

“Bass?”

At first there was no reaction, but then he began to slowly shake his head back and forth in his hands.

“Bass, it’s me. It’s Miles… … _Bass!_ ”

A twisted laughter came from the other man and he slowly lifted his head to reveal a sadistic smirk plastered across his face.

“Did you really think that you could break in here and not get caught? You rebels just keep getting stupider and stupider.”

With this, Bass rose to his feet and took a few steps closer.

Miles vaguely understood just enough from the doctor and Rachel’s explanations to know that Bass was seeing Miles as somebody else who was out to get him.

“Bass, it’s Miles. I’m fine, okay?” He tried a little louder this time. “You didn’t kill me, I’m fine. You don’t have to live in these hallucinations.”

Bass began to slowly step towards Miles and for just a split second Miles thought that his friend might actually have recognized him, but then Bass stopped just one step away, pulled his right arm back, and punched Miles in the face over and over and over again.

Before Miles even had time to fully react, a male nurse had rushed into the room and forcibly pulled a still thrashing Monroe off of him.

As the nurse held Monroe tight, a second one entered the room carrying a needle that was filled sedative.

Just before the second nurse reached him, Bass suddenly went still and his eyes, which had remained locked on Miles throughout his entire struggle, suddenly narrowed in curiosity. It was as if maybe, just maybe, for a fraction of a second he had actually seen Miles as himself or at the very least had thought that something was off about what he was seeing.

“No, don’t!” Miles yelled urgently, trying to keep them from injecting Bass with the sedative when he looked like he might have recognized him, but it was already too late.

By the time that Miles had stood back up from the ground, Bass’s body had already gone limp and he was practically asleep.

“Dammit!” Miles grunted out as he slammed a fist into the wall of the room.

On his way out of Bass’s room, Miles brought a hand up to his stinging mouth only to find a little dribble of blood on his hand from where Bass had split his lip open.

* * *

 

“What happened to your face?” Rachel asked worriedly the instant that Miles walked through the door to her house.

Although they didn’t live together before the accident, Rachel had insisted that Miles move in, at least for the time being. Charlie had just turned six since the accident and she was thrilled to have Miles there, it was like Christmas had come early for her.

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” Miles said, brushing the topic off as he continued to walk through the room, hoping to go find Charlie and figure out what she wanted for the birthday that he had missed instead of having to discuss what had just happened.

“Your lip’s cut open and you have a black eye, that’s not nothing,” Rachel argued. “Did Bass do that to you? You just got out of the hospital; I knew that you shouldn’t have gone to see him. It was too soon.”

The last thing that Miles wanted to do at that moment was to fight with Rachel and yet he froze momentarily in the doorway with his back to her and then sighed loudly before turning to argue back at her.

“Yes, Bass did this, but not to me-”

“What do you mean he didn’t do it you? It’s your face that’s damaged, not someone else’s, Miles,” Rachel pointed out. “I know that this is going to be hard for you accept, but he’s gone. That’s not Bass anymore, it’s some monster wearing his face and there’s no way to get him back. The doctors have been trying for months. _I’ve_ been trying, but there’s no getting through to him.”

“Oh really? There isn’t?” Miles challenged. “He saw me, Rachel. Right before they gave him the sedative, he recognized me. I know he did, but it was too late.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Rachel insisted.

“Because he’s like a brother to me! I’ve known him my entire life, I think I know whether he recognizes me or not, Rachel!” Miles shouted out in a booming voice. “You think it’s too soon for me to be going to see him after being in the hospital? What about Bass? He’s been in that hospital for just as long as I was! I’m all that he has left, don’t you understand that? I’m all that he has left and he’s falling apart because he thinks that he killed me!”

Rachel stood in a stunned silence, unsure of how to respond to that.

“And do you know what the worst part is?” Miles continued to shout. “Maybe he was driving, but that crash was my fault. _Mine._ And now it’s _my_ fault that he’s stuck living in some alternate universe nightmare because coping with reality was even worse of a nightmare!”

With that, he turned right back around and headed back for the front door.

“Miles,” Rachel tried in a weak voice, hoping to keep him from leaving… Hoping to somehow make him actually open up to her instead of just yelling.

Miles brought a hand up and wiped it over his face while taking a deep breath to calm himself down a little before he turned back to look at her.

“Look, I’m sorry... I know that I-” Miles struggled to get the words out. “I know that I’m being a jerk and that’s not fair… I just need some space… I’m moving back to my apartment.”

The last thing that Miles saw before he left Rachel’s house was Charlie’s little head peeking around the far corner of the room. She’d been listening to that entire argument and the look on her face hit Miles like another cannonball of guilt in the gut… Just what he needed.


	3. (Miles and Bass)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The point of view in this chapter switches back and forth between Miles' and Bass'. I tried to use line breaks to make the switches easier to understand.

"I'm sorry, but if your friend becomes violent again then we are going to have to sedate him," the doctor told Miles in a falsely apologetic tone.

"I'm telling you that he saw me last time," Miles insisted, struggling to keep his tone sounding just irritated instead of furious as he clenched his fists in the pockets of his jacket. "Right before your nurses injected him with a sedative, he saw me."

"With all due respect, I don't want you to get your hopes up," the doctor continued in a soothing voice. "There's a good chance that your friend didn't really see you or that, even if he did, it won't happen again right away. Sebastian gets a few occasional glimmers of clarity, but for the most part lives entirely submerged in his delusions."

"His name is Bass," Miles said in a slightly angrier tone than intended before he forced himself to take a few deep breaths. His tone was much gentler and calm as he pleaded, "Look, I don't care if he tries to attack me again. Okay? I'm not going to sue if I get injured if that's what you're worried about. I'm just asking you to hold off with the sedative, okay?"

The doctor sighed loudly before he reluctantly agreed, "I'll delay it as long as I can, but if me or one of the nurses think that you're in danger then we won't hesitate to sedate your friend, whether you want us to or not."

Miles muttered out an unconvincing "thanks" before turning into his friend's room.

* * *

Bass was standing in his office, pouring himself a nice drink, when he heard footsteps behind him entering the room. He paused a moment for dramatic effect before he slowly turned as he plastered on his most sinister smirk.

He watched as Jeremy pushed a scrawny looking man in his early twenties into the room.

"Look what I found trying to sneak in, Boss," Jeremy commented with a grin.

Bass slowly looked the kid up and down as he folded his hands behind his back and took a deliberate step forward. The infiltrator looked down at the ground, avoiding eye contact as Bass took in the view of his filthy worn down clothes, his overall disheveled appearance, and the American flag design on his right sleeve.

"That'll be all Jeremy," Bass told his friend without taking his eyes off of his newfound prisoner.

* * *

Miles looked at the empty space around him before he brought his gaze back to his friend's and asked, "Who's Jeremy? I'm the only one here, Bass. It's me… It's Miles."

Bass didn't seem to hear the words as he began to laugh out the question, "So, are you here to try and rescue the other little rebel who broke in here thinking that he could get rid of me? Or did you come to try it for yourself?"

* * *

The rebel remained silent, still avoiding Bass's gaze.

"Come on, don't be shy," he insisted with a theatrical grin as he held his arms out away from his sides. "Although, I'll warn you, it didn't work out very well for any of your friends before you."

He waited a few long seconds before he asked, "No?"

He let out a slight sigh as he brought his arms back down before he brought his drink to his lips, taking a quick swig out of it.

"Smart choice," he told the rebel. "Boring… But smart…"

* * *

Miles watched as his friend set down the paper cup of water that he had been treating like some fancy scotch before he began to stalk closer.

"Of course one smart choice doesn't cancel out the fact that you were _stupid_ enough to try and break into _my_ home!" Bass hissed out as he stopped right in front of his friend.

"Bass, why are you doing this to yourself?" Miles questioned, meeting his friend's gaze with his own unafraid eyes. "Come on, man. You've got to stop this. Please. If you're not going to do it for yourself, then do it for me."

* * *

Bass watched as the twerp squirmed under his gaze for a moment longer before he brought a hand quickly up, pinning the rebel's throat against the wall and pushing slightly upwards as he moved his face closer until it was just mere centimeters away.

"But don't worry, I'm not going to kill you," he informed the kid with a generous smirk. "No, no, no. I'm feeling especially _charitable-_ " he pressed down harder "-today… Which is why I'm just going to make a nice example out of you instead."

"Please… _Please… D- Don't…_ " The kid whimpered out through what little breath he could manage to catch.

Bass laughed loudly.

"On second thought, you're too weak to make a proper example out of," he insisted, pressing harder once again. "I guess I'm going to have to kill you after all."

* * *

"This is ridiculous! I have to sedate him!" A nurse insisted angrily as he picked up a syringe.

"No! ...Don't!" Miles pushed out through a weak and ragged breath.

"I already thought that he was going to kill you before he said it," the nurse insisted. "I'm sorry, but I am not here to help you fulfill whatever death wish it is that you've got going on here."

Miles knew that there was no point in arguing with the nurse, that it was more important to instead use these last few seconds before Bass would be drugged to really try and get through to him.

"If you're going to kill me, then do it!" He shouted out. " _Look me in the eyes and do it, Bass!"_

* * *

 

Bass had been just about to put the twerp out of his misery when he suddenly heard an angry voice… Not just an angry one, a familiar one.

He pulled his head back and stared at the rebel in surprise. It was the same kid standing there, but it sure as hell wasn't his voice. It was Miles'.

"Go ahead! Kill your best friend!"

Bass's grip loosened a little as he let the doubt turn into hesitation.

For just a second the rebel kid in front of him was replaced with the face of his best friend as he angrily shouted out, " _Show me just how damn far-gone you are!_ "

Bass recoiled in shock as he took a couple of steps backwards.

* * *

Miles raised his hands in a sign that he didn't intend to make any sudden movements or startle his friend. It was kind of like trying to approach a deer without spooking it.

Bass stared in confusion and awe for a moment longer before he rasped out, "Miles?" His voice came out so quiet and cracked that he may as well have not spoken.

"Yeah. It's me, buddy," Miles confirmed gently before he turned to the nurse and quietly pointed out, "I think you can put that away now."

The nurse kept the syringe in hand, but did take a step back to let Miles try whatever he was going to do first.

* * *

Bass shook his head to try and clear out his thoughts. This was impossible. There was no way that Miles could be here and just have appeared out of thin air to replace the rebel… Was he losing his mind?

"What the hell did you do to me?" He demanded as he looked back over to see the rebel once again standing there.

His prisoner's lips twitched up into a big grin. Bass blinked and suddenly it was Miles staring at him with a look of concern.

Bass ran his hands through his hair as he looked around the room in confusion.

"What did you do?" He demanded as he looked back at the face of the rebel. "Did you drug my drink? …But how the hell would you do that without any inside help?"

* * *

As Bass spoke, Miles noticed that his words turned more into ramblings to himself than actual speaking to whoever else he might be seeing.

"…Someone else had to be helping you… Someone close to me."

Bass suddenly walked towards Miles with a sense of urgency that was very out of place from the slow and deliberate movements he had begun this visit using. His movements were now frantic as he lifted Miles off of the ground by the throat.

Miles could see his friend's whole body shaking and knew that he had gotten through, at least a little. He just needed to figure out how to convince Bass that this was reality, not the other world, before the nurse could reach them with the syringe.

"Who helped you?" Bass demanded, shouting now.

"I've seen enough," the nurse insisted.

Miles ignored him, keeping his full attention on his friend.

He brought his hands up over top of his friend's as he weakly croaked out, "Bass… _Please_."

Miles gently pulled on the other man's hands, removing them from his neck now that his friend's resistance had decreased.

* * *

Bass stared at the face of his friend, his brother, in horror before he looked back down at his hands in disgust. Had he really just been trying to choke his best friend to death?

"This isn't real," he whispered out weakly, trying to reassure himself. "This _can't_ be real. It's impossible."

Miles took a small step forward, causing his friend to take another big one backwards.

"You can't be here," Bass insisted as tears began to form in his eyes. "You left. I have to be hallucinating. …You're not Miles." He shook his head. "You're just some puny little rebel kid."

"No, Bass. I'm not," Miles told him. " _This_ … What you're seeing right now. Me. That's what's real, okay?"

"No," Bass struggled out in disbelief. "No. It can't be. No… No… _No_."

His hand flew up to cover his mouth and he was shaking his head in denial.

"Please just listen to me," Miles begged. "The world that you think that you're living in isn't real."

"Do you realize how crazy you sound right now, Miles?" Bass questioned with a dry laugh. "How crazy we _both_ sound?"

"Just try to remember," Miles pleaded. "A little under five months ago we got into a car crash. I was in a coma from it and you created this world so that you wouldn't have to lose me. But now I'm awake and I'm asking you to trust me... I need you, Bass."

"I want to believe you, I really do," Bass told his friend. "But the blackout happened years ago. I haven't even been in a working car for fifteen years and you're saying that all of this started just a few months ago?"

"Yes. Apparently time travels different in wherever in your head it is that you go," Miles answered, knowing just how unconvincing he probably sounded. "They tried to explain why to me, but it was just a bunch of medical jargon that I didn't really understand. Hell, I'm not even sure that they understand. To be perfectly honest, I think that they were just using complicated terms to try and make it sound like they have any idea what's going on with you."

Bass let out a weak laugh at that, although he was still quite uncertain.

"Look around, Bass. _Really_ look," Miles told him. "Look at the electric lighting and everything else in here and _see_ it for a change... Look hard and then tell me where you think that we are."

Bass looked down at himself, at his militia uniform, and really struggled to see. If Miles was right, if he wasn't just some kind of drug-induced hallucination and the blackout had never happened, then he shouldn't be wearing this uniform.

With shaking hands, he slowly moved to touch the sleeve of his uniform, this time without the expectation of what the fabric would feel like. Instead he was questioning it, wondering if he really could have been imagining all of it.

He made a sharp intake of breath as his hand made contact with the sleeve only to feel the softness of his skin and arm hair instead of the material that he had grown used to.

"You alright?"

Bass ignored his friend and clenched his eyes shut as he tried to will the charade away.

When he opened his eyes and held his hands up in front of them, he found that his forearms were now bare. Above his elbows were the sleeves of a plain white t-shirt.

He looked down at his legs to find that they were also covered in white, his pants clearly meant to match his plain shirt. He was dressed in the cliché outfit of a psych patient.

…Miles had said something about doctors. And Bass was pretty sure that he did belong in a mental hospital if everything else that Miles had said was true.

He looked up from himself and around his office… Or what had looked a lot more like his office a few minutes ago…

It still looked pretty similar, but there was one startling difference. Instead of being lit by candles, the room now seemed to be lit by a fluorescent light in the ceiling.

Bass spent a solid minute or two just staring at the light fixture in wonder before he brought his attention back to the rest of the room, which had transformed even further. The walls were now a bright white to match his outfit and they seemed to be set much closer to each other now.

There was someone else in the room now too, a nurse in plain white scrubs.

Bass's breathing became heavy as he brought his hands to his face and closed his eyes before dragging his hands over them. By the time that he brought his hands back away the change was done.

"Bass, are you okay?"

He looked around the small room, studying the plain white minimalist furniture before he finally turned back to face his friend again.

"Is this real, Miles?" He asked in a confused tone. "Am I locked up in some kind of looney bin?"


	4. (Miles and Bass)

Although Bass's doctors had been quite reluctant to let him out, Miles finally managed to convince them to after a few days had passed since Bass's first moment of clarity.

Miles had been very insistent that Bass needed to get out of a place as miserable as that mental hospital and that he needed to stay with him for a while if they wanted to keep him from falling back into his delusions. Besides, Bass had been out of them for four whole days, which was significantly longer than he ever had been before.

Bass's doctor still hadn't seemed totally convinced that it was a good idea to release him, but had eventually given in when Miles had promised that he would bring Bass back right away if anything went wrong or seemed off with him. Even then, Bass had also had to agree to come back twice a week to make sure that his mental state was okay. Miles had also been warned that it was a good idea to try and keep Bass away from conflict or anything that could negatively affect his emotional state as if he somehow would be able to control that.

* * *

As they sat in the car on the way back to Miles' place, Bass stared out the window as if he was seeing everything for the first time. As he took everything in, he seemed less excited than he was just overwhelmed.

After a few minutes of driving in silence, he finally asked, "Are you sure that bailing me out of there was the best idea, Miles?"

"What? Did you think I was just going to leave you in there forever?" Miles questioned. "Of course I was going to get you out of there. That place was enough to drive anyone crazy. I don't see how they expected you to stay sane in there."

" _Stay_ sane?" Bass asked in a confused tone. "Apparently I'm not be the only nut job in the car."

"You're not crazy, Bass," Miles argued. "Okay, maybe you lost your marbles for a little bit there, but you're fine now. I mean you know what's real and not now, right?"

There was a dragged out silence before Miles turned to look at his friend.

"...Bass?"

"Watch the road, Miles," Bass said insistently as soon as he turned to find Miles' attention fully on him. "...And I'm not currently hallucinating any crazy followers who think that I'm running some imaginary republic, if that's what you're asking."

"Okay, good," Miles said as he focused back on the road. "See, you're fine."

"You have a very broad definition of fine," Bass accused.

"Yeah, but that's just so that I can fit into it," Miles told his friend with a chuckle.

They sat in silence for a bit longer before Bass commented, "That noise is driving me insane." He then quickly thought to add on, "Not literally though."

"What noise?" Miles asked, starting to get a little concerned for his friend.

"That buzzing from the electricity," Bass responded. "You know when the power goes out and everything sounds too quiet, but then it comes back and you aren't used to the electrical buzzing and it's just annoying? This is like that, but ten times worse. I don't know how I used to block it out... Now it just keeps me awake at night."

The one advantage of the sound was that it was something that helped Bass to remember what was real. It was something that he could concentrate on when he felt like the delusions might be trying to creep their way back in.

"Here," Miles said as he reached over to turn the radio on. "Better?"

"Yeah, thanks," Bass told him before turning his attention back out the window.

The radio was definitely an improvement, but it was also just one more thing that Bass was going to have to readjust to.

* * *

When they stepped into Miles' apartment, Bass was relieved to find that it still looked just the way that it always had.

"You hungry?" Miles questioned as he stepped past him.

Miles was already growing used to Bass staring at everything in wonder and he couldn't really blame his friend for it.

"Starving," Bass responded as he followed his friend into the kitchen.

Miles opened his fridge and searched through the freezer before finally pulling out a box of microwave mini-pizzas.

"This is all I've got."

Miles never cooked. He never had and, let's face it, he probably never would. He claimed that learning how to would be a waste of his time. He didn't believe in spending hours on what you could do in five minutes with a microwave. He also didn't believe in grocery shopping until it was absolutely necessary, so his apartment was in an almost permanent state of being out of food. Somehow it was always stocked up on beer though. It really was a wonder how Miles survived as a self-reliant adult.

"Make me like five of those things," Bass told him.

"Seriously?" Miles asked in an amused tone.

"What? I'm hungry," Bass defended. "Besides, I've missed microwaved food."

* * *

A few minutes later the pair was sitting at the table eating their mini-pizzas. Well, Miles was eating. Bass was just inhaling his like he hadn't eaten a thing in the last three weeks.

"These are the best things I've ever eaten," he insisted as he took a small break from stuffing his face.

"Really? Because mine were lukewarm in the middle," Miles commented with an amused smirk.

"So are mine, but I don't even care," Bass responded happily. "These are amazing."

"If you think those are good, then you're going to have a heart attack when you try normal food again," Miles told him.


	5. Chapter 5

"Are you sure that you're good with her staying here still?" Miles asked his brother.

"You said that he's doing alright and I trust you to look after her, Miles," Ben responded. "Besides, sleeping over at Uncle Miles' house is all that Charlie's talked about for the last week. If I made her stay home, then she would have been guilt-tripping me non-stop over it until I would have ended up driving her here anyways."

"Fair enough," Miles agreed with a small laugh.

"Just take good care of her, alright?" Ben asked.

"I will," Miles promised.

"Good."

They had been talking a few feet away from the car as Charlie, less than patiently, waited in the backseat. Now that the adult conversation about Bass's condition was over, Ben opened the door to let her out and handed her bag over to her uncle.

"Uncle Miles!" Charlie called out excitedly as she ran up to him.

"Hey, kiddo," Miles said as he knelt down to pick her up.

They said their goodbyes to Ben and then Miles turned to carry Charlie and her stuff to his apartment.

* * *

As soon as Miles set her down inside the door, Charlie ripped off her shoes and then went running over to the couch.

"Uncle Bass!" She shrieked out excitedly as she crawled up onto the spot beside him, all but forgetting about her real uncle.

As he looked at real, six year-old Charlie, Bass had to let out a small laugh at the idea of his grown-up delusion of her.

"I haven't seen you in forever, Charlotte," Bass told her with a smile. "You're smaller than I remembered."

"You mean bigger," Charlie corrected in a confused tone. "I'm six now."

"Trust me, kid. I mean smaller," he insisted before letting out a small laugh. "...I missed your birthday? What, I wasn't good enough to invite anymore?"

"You and Uncle Miles were too sick," she responded.

"Charlie," Miles said in a warning tone.

He figured that Bass didn't need any more reminders of the crash and the coma.

Bass, however, didn't seem to mind too much. Having little Charlie around was one of the few things that still felt normal after all of the time that he had spent stuck in his delusions.

"So, I hear you're sleeping over," he told her. "I am too. I'll even let you take my bed and sleep on the couch."

* * *

Miles let out a laugh as he walked back out of the kitchen with a juice box for Charlie.

He'd had to go on a special shopping trip to pick up kid-friendly stuff from the grocery store. Bringing Bass with him had made for quite the long trip and purchasing an embarrassingly large amount of junk food that Bass has missed over the last several months.

"I think you're more interested in this show than she is," Miles commented as he handed the juice box over to his niece who was watching Dora the Explorer, much to Miles' dismay.

"Hey, you try going without TV for fifteen years and you'd be willing to watch anything too," Bass replied with a laugh before he realized what exactly he had just said and frowned. "I mean five months... I know it wasn't fifteen years."

Miles could see the distress written on his friend's face. "Relax. I knew what you meant."

Bass nodded and then turned his attention back to the TV screen. There was a brief uncomfortable silence before he finally commented, "I think we might have watched too much Dora with her over the years... I imagined up a Latin named Nora for you in the blackout world. Although she was definitely a lot less G rated."

"Was she hot?" Miles asked.

"Smoking."

* * *

Rachel hadn't spoken to Miles in over a week and she knew that they needed to talk. She couldn't imagine what he must be going through with waking up to find that his best friend had lost his mind and she wanted to be there to help him through it. She knew that she needed to apologize to him and try and help him understand in a more gentle way and so that was how she found herself standing outside his door, waiting for someone to answer it.

"Rachel," Miles said with a look of complete surprise as he opened the door.

"Look, we really need to talk," she said. "We need to clear the air."

Before Miles had the chance to say something to stop her, she had already stepped into his apartment and stopped dead in her tracks as the colour drained from her face.

She wasn't sure what she was more surprised by, finding Bass sitting on the couch or finding her daughter there with him.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Rachel demanded in a sharp tone before turning her icy gaze back onto her boyfriend. "And what is Charlie doing here? She's supposed to be with Ben."

"Just calm down for a second, Rachel. Okay?" Miles asked. "It's alright. Bass isn't cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs anymore and Ben said that it was fine if she came here."

"Oh, really?" Rachel questioned in a shaking voice. "Well if Ben said that it's okay... I mean I'm sure that Bass is back at a hundred percent and nothing like the _psycho_ he's been for months. You're right. He's exactly the kind of guy that I want hanging around my six year-old daughter!"

"Look, I get that you're angry-"

"Angry doesn't even begin to describe what I am right now, Miles," she interrupted.

"Alright, I know," he agreed. "But can we _please_ talk about this in the kitchen instead?"

Rachel frowned and crossed her arms over her chest before reluctantly stalking into the kitchen in front of Miles, who shot his friend an apologetic glance on his way out of the room.

* * *

After several minutes of trying to tune out the loud argument coming from the kitchen, Bass finally turned to a miserable looking Charlie and said, "Come on, kid. You want to go get some ice cream?"

Charlie immediately nodded her head, so Bass got up and headed for the door, grabbing Miles' car keys on the way.

* * *

A few minutes later, Bass was still sitting in Miles' car, staring straight ahead with the engine not turned on yet.

Getting into the driver's seat had brought up memories that he had been trying to block out. Memories of the night of the car accident. Memories of Miles lying way too still… Of the body bag they'd used on the girl in the other car… Of finding out that chances of Miles waking up again were slim to none.

Those memories gave way to memories of the horrible things that he'd done in his delusions. It had all just seemed so real. He had felt necks snap under his hands just as surely as he felt his own nails digging into his clenched fist now. He had truly believed that he was really killing those people and yet it hadn't stopped him.

"You have to put the key in," a small voice piped up a little nervously.

Bass let out a forced laugh as he turned in his seat to look back at Charlie. Just looking at her dragged him back to reality a little.

"Were you seeing things?" She asked quietly. "My mom says that you make bad things up in your head…"

"I used to," he told her. "I'm getting better now, though."

He really hoped that was true.

"She said that you don't know what's real," Charlie added. "I'm not supposed to hear about that though."

"I didn't for a while," Bass admitted before he let out a soft chuckle. "I thought that you were all grown up and ready to fight guys twice your size… But seeing you like this makes it a lot easier to remember. I'm always going to be able to see that you're real, alright?"

She nodded her head.

"Good, now what do you say we walk?" Bass asked before turning to open his car door. "It's not that far."

He opened Charlie's door for her and she hopped out and grabbed onto Bass's hand as they began to walk. He had to smile a little to himself at that.

* * *

"I don't care if he's getting better!" Rachel shouted angrily. "I still don't want him around Charlie! You knew that I wouldn't want him around her and yet you still let Ben leave her here without even telling me that Bass was out of the hospital! God, Miles. If you knew the things that he said to me in there, then you wouldn't want him around her either!"

"Rachel, stop yelling!" Miles growled out. "Believe it or not, my kitchen isn't soundproof. They can hear you."

"I'm sorry, but I don't care if I'm hurting Bass's feelings," she informed him in a borderline hysterical tone. "He said that he was going to torture my stillborn son in whatever the hell crazy world it is that he lived in until I wished that Danny had never been born!"

"That wasn't really him, Rachel," Miles hissed. "That was the crazy talking, okay? And the last thing that he needs is to get that crazy back. The doctors said that he's supposed to be staying away from conflict to try and keep from going back to crazy land. So you yelling about him ten feet away from him is not going to help."

"I don't want him around Charlie," Rachel insisted. "Especially alone. End of story. Now I'm going to go take my daughter home."

With that she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

Miles paused for a moment and let out a loud sigh to himself before he heard Rachel's voice again, much weaker this time.

"They're gone."

"What do you mean they're gone?" Miles questioned as he walked back into the living room where the TV was still playing, only to find that the couch had been abandoned.

"Where the hell did he take her?" Rachel demanded as tears formed in her eyes.

"Calm down, they're probably around here somewhere," Miles insisted before calling out, "Bass? …Charlie?"

Several seconds passed in silence before Rachel let out a pained sound.

"Conflict makes him go nuts again, huh?" She asked. "Well that's just perfect when he's missing with my daughter. This is exactly why I didn't want her staying here with that monster."

"Relax, he wouldn't hurt Charlie," Miles told her.

"Really? How many fights did he get in while he was in the hospital, Miles?" Rachel challenged. "He beat you up until nurses had to sedate him. In his delusions he's a serial killer. What the hell makes you think that he wouldn't hurt Charlie when he's seeing things?"

"They're probably fine," Miles responded. "I'll try calling his cell to check."

A few seconds later, Bass's cell phone began to ring from where it was sitting in Miles' guest room.

Rachel looked ready to have a complete breakdown as she stared at him incredulously.

"That's just great. That's _perfect_ ," she commented in a shrill tone before letting out a humourless laugh. "Of course he left his cell phone here... Isn't that just _perfect_?"

"Give the guy a break. He hasn't had to deal with cell phones in what was years to him," Miles defended. "Is it really that surprising that he'd forget it?"

"How are you still defending him?" Rachel shouted out angrily. "If anything happens to Charlie because of him, then I will _never_ forgive you, Miles."

Miles opened his mouth to shout back, but before he could there was the sound of the door opening.

"Thank God," he muttered to himself as Bass and Charlie stepped through the doorway.

"Come on, aren't you two done arguing yet?" Bass complained when he saw Miles' look of exasperation and Rachel's look of anger. "Listening to it was bothering me, so it sure as hell must not have been fun for Charlie."

Rachel just glared at him in response.

"Relax, I just took her to get some ice cream," Bass defended. "I was hoping that you two would be finished screaming by the time we got back."

Miles gave Rachel an 'I told you so' look, which she purposely chose to ignore.

Charlie had already ripped her shoes off before Rachel could notice to stop her.

"Go grab your stuff, Charlie," she insisted. "We're leaving."

"But I'm sleeping over," Charlie argued. "Dad said I could sleep over."

"Well that was before Dad knew that Bass was staying here to," Rachel responded in an exasperated tone. "Now go grab your stuff."

"No." Charlie insisted with the stubbornness of a true Matheson. "You already made Uncle Miles leave our house, just like you made Dad leave! I'm not going!"

Rachel and Miles both winced a little as her voice rose to a scream.

"Charlie-" Rachel tried weakly.

"No! I'm staying here with Uncle Miles and Uncle Bass!" Charlie shouted. "Dad promised!"

"Charl-"

"No! I'm not going! I hate you!" Charlie screamed out before running away down the hallway.

Rachel stumbled back a step as if her daughter's words had physically struck her.

"I can't do this," Rachel said in a voice barely louder than a whisper as she shook her head. "I just can't."

Tears were freely streaming down her face now and Bass felt a large pang of guilt that everyone in the apartment seemed to be miserable just because of his presence.

"I can't keep always being the bad guy that has to ruin everything for her, just because I'm trying to protect her," Rachel sobbed out. "My daughter hates me."

Miles' anger dissolved as he took a step closer to Rachel, pulling her to his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.

"She doesn't hate you, Rachel," he told her gently before pressing his lips to the top of her head. "She's just upset."

"Because of me," Rachel pointed out. "Because I'm the mean mom. Ben's the fun dad and you two are the fun uncles and I'm just the prison warden she's stuck with."

Bass couldn't watch them for a moment longer, so instead he turned down the hallway in search of Charlie.

He found her in the guest bedroom, sitting on the floor between the side of the dresser and the wall in an attempt to hide.

"I'm not going," she told him as soon as he spotted her.

Bass sat down a few feet away from her before telling her, "You shouldn't be so hard on your mom."

"Why?" Charlie questioned, staring down at the floor. "Everything I said to her was true."

"I'm not sure about all of it, but I do know that you don't hate her," he told her. "And I know that she's just trying to look out for you."

"Why? It's not like you're going to hurt me," Charlie argued.

"Your mom doesn't know that," Bass insisted. "I said some pretty terrible things to her when I didn't know what was real. I can see why she'd be afraid to have you be around me."

"I want to stay here with you and Miles," she said with a frown. "I don't want to go home. I haven't seen you two in forever."

"Me and Miles are better now," Bass told her. "You're going to be able to see us a lot more often now, okay? It's just going to take a while for your mom to get comfortable with you being around me again."

He wasn't sure if that would ever happen again, but he wasn't going to tell that to Charlie right now. Instead he was going to hold on to the possibility that he'd be able to regain Rachel's trust from being around Charlie while supervised or something.

When Charlie still remained silent, he told her, "If we want your mom to try and trust me again, then you have to go home with her, okay?"

* * *

When Rachel heard running footsteps re-enter the room, she quickly removed her face from Miles' shoulder and wiped at her eyes to try and hide the fact that she'd been crying from her daughter.

"Mommy?" A small voice asked.

Rachel plastered on the closest thing to a smile that she could muster as she turned around to face her daughter. "Yeah, Charlie?"

"Can you help me tie my shoes?" Charlie asked as Bass set her bag down by the door.

Rachel felt a small wave of relief wash over her as she responded, "Sure."


	6. Chapter 6

Bass woke up with a start and bolted upright as he threw the covers off of himself. He stared down at his hands, expecting to find blood, before he finally realized where he was.

His breathing remained irregular as he rose to his feet and got up to turn the light on. Once the light was on he managed to calm down a little.

If the light was on, then that meant that the blackout hadn't happened. And if the blackout hadn't happened, then that meant that he hadn't caused Emma's death. It had just been a dream. A nightmare of a made-up memory, but a dream nonetheless.

Only that wasn't exactly comforting. It was a lot better than having the blackout be real and being responsible for Emma's death and so many more, but he still felt guilt over having been able to convince himself that he had done all of those horrible things. He had justified it all in his mind and been sure that he had been capable of those things. Maybe he still was capable of them.

Bass left the light on as he crawled back into bed and shut his eyes, listening to the electrical humming that assured him that the power was on. The noise that had annoyed him so much the first few nights after coming back to reality was now something that he clung to. With how often he had used it as a link to reality, the noise had become almost comforting to him.

As he lay there, he wondered about Emma. He hadn't seen her in years. It had been years even without the decades that he'd imagined. For all he knew she could be dead, but that was something that he couldn't bear to think about. She could just as easily have kids with someone else. That was better, but still not something he wanted to consider.

Or she could have a kid with him. It wasn't likely, but it was possible. They had still slept together when she had been with Miles. There was still the smallest possibility that, just maybe, he had a son that he had never met. A son whose name he didn't know, just like in the world he'd made up.

Bass groaned to himself and rolled over. This was stupid. He needed to stop considering possibilities that were barely there. He needed to stop torturing himself over things that he couldn't know.

But he could know. That was the thing. He could try to figure out where Emma was now, how she was doing, what she looked like. He could try to see her, but he was afraid of what he might find out.

That fear was also what was holding him back from talking to Miles about this. He was terrified of how Miles would react if he found out about all of the terrible, monstrous things that he had convinced himself he had done. He was still afraid to tell his friend even about sleeping with Emma, so there was definitely no way that he was going to bring up what he had done to her in the blackout world.

That was why he didn't talk much about the delusions to Miles, or anyone for that matter... Not that he saw many people these days. Miles, Rachel, Charlie, and his doctor pretty much made up the complete list.

But still, his talk of the blackout world stayed rooted in humorous anecdotes, or mentioning Nora, or talking about how strange it was having electricity, but he never talked about the stuff that was truly weighing on him.

* * *

If Miles noticed the next morning that Bass had left the light on in his room or found anything strange about a grown man sleeping with the light on, then he didn't say anything about it. Bass wasn't sure whether that was a relief or just a sign of how much things had changed.

* * *

As Bass attended one of his two weekly sessions with his doctor, Miles headed over to Rachel's place to try to clear things up with her. Charlie was over at a friend's house, so it was just the two of them.

"Where's Bass?" Rachel asked as Miles walked into the house. "Shouldn't you be babysitting him?"

"He's talking to his doctor," Miles responded. "He goes back twice a week to make sure that he's okay."

"And is he?" She questioned. "Okay?"

"If I told you he was, would you believe me?" Miles asked as he took a seat on her couch.

"Probably not," Rachel admitted.

"Well he is doing better," he told her anyways. "For however little that's worth."

Rachel nodded her head as she sat down on the couch beside him.

"Is it just me, or is Bass the only thing that we talk about since you woke up?" She questioned.

"You're right. It is," he agreed.

Rachel could tell by his tone that he was holding something back.

"But what?" She asked.

Miles let out a sigh. "But you know Charlie isn't going to give up on wanting to see him."

"Well then she's just going to have to deal with disappointment," Rachel insisted.

"What about me?" Miles asked. "Is she just going to have to deal with being disappointed in me too?"

"No," she responded. "Of course she's going to see you still. Just not with him around."

"And when exactly do you think that's going to happen?" Miles questioned. "You expect me to be watching over him at all times, babysitting him as you put it, because you're convinced he's a danger. So when the hell do you expect me to see Charlie? Only when he's safely back with his doctor?"

"I don't know," Rachel admitted as her voice cracked. "I don't have all the answers Miles. I'm just trying to keep Charlie safe."

"I know," Miles admitted, feeling a bit uncomfortable. "I get that. Just like I get that you don't want to be around him anymore after whatever it is he said. But Charlie does want to be around him and I want to be around Charlie, so we're going to have to figure something out... I have an idea. That's why I'm here… Or part of it, anyways."

Rachel braced herself and tried to force herself to have an open mind as she told him, "Alright. I'm listening."


	7. Chapter 7

Miles had just finished discussing the plan with Ben when he'd asked his brother to put Charlie on the phone.

"Uncle Miles!" Charlie called excitedly through the phone in greeting.

"Hey, kiddo," he told her with a laugh. "I've got an important question for you, okay? …Are you ready?"

"What?" She asked him.

"Me and Uncle Bass still owe you a birthday present," Miles pointed out. "And we need to know what you want... Pick something good, okay? I want to annoy your parents by buying you something that they think is too much."

Charlie was silent for a moment as she seriously considered before she told him, "I want an Easy-Bake Oven."

"Okay, done," he told her. "Anything else you can think of?"

* * *

As Bass followed his friend through the toy store, he found himself thinking more and more about the mystery son he'd imagined for himself. Why had he thought himself up a kid? And why was it one that he'd had with Emma?

Sure, he liked having Charlie around, but it wasn't like he was in any way prepared to be a dad. He wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to be one, even eventually. He'd never even really considered it until the idea of being a father had popped up in his delusions.

He knew that it was stupid, but he found himself wondering what his and Emma's son would have been like. It was beyond pointless trying to imagine what it would have been like meeting their imaginary kid. He debated it for a minute before he forced himself to stop, figuring that voluntarily imagining what something in that world was like could end up being a slippery slope that he did not need to go near.

He managed to tear his mind off of it for about two minutes before a curly-haired little boy practically tripped him while running down the aisles.

"Hey, Miles?" Bass questioned finally. "Do you ever think about kids?"

A slight smirk formed on Miles' lips as he pointed out, "That's not exactly the best question to ask in the middle of a toy store, Bass."

"You know what I mean," Bass insisted. "I mean, sure. Rachel's got Charlie. But do you ever think about having a kid of your own with her?"

"Where the hell is this coming from?" Miles questioned in an amused tone. "What, you want one? Who do you think that you're going to have a kid with? If you're hoping for me, then sorry, I'm already taken. And if we started raising a kid together, Rachel would kill me."

Bass went silent.

"No, seriously? What's with the kid thing?" Miles prodded.

Bass took a minute to think his words through, so that he hopefully wouldn't reveal anything that he didn't want to, before responding with, "I had one in the blackout world. I never met it, but... Well, actually. I sort of had two, but one of them didn't survive being born. And the other one would have been grown up, but I never met it."

Miles stopped what he was doing and turned and stared at his friend in silence. It still absolutely baffled his mind that Bass had put himself in such a horrible world. Even if it had been meant to be a happy escape world, how the hell had everything gone so damn wrong?

"Never mind, forget it," Bass insisted. "Let's just find this damn Easy-Bake Oven and get out of here."

"Bass-"

Miles wasn't sure of what exactly it was that he intended to say. Before then, Bass hadn't made any comments like that yet. He never discussed anything too serious about his delusions and now Miles was left unsure of how to react, even though he wished that he could think of something to say.

Even if he'd had something to say, he never would have successfully gotten it out though, since Bass immediately cut him off when he opened his mouth to attempt to think of something.

"I'm fine," he insisted. "It wasn't real. Besides, it was a long time ago in that world anyways… I don't know why I brought it up… It's not a big deal."

Maybe the Shelly thing had been a long time ago in the blackout world, but the losing Emma and finding out about his son thing hadn't been that long ago. Still, it wasn't real and that was what he needed to focus on instead of wondering about what could have been.

Besides, it had been dumb of him to bring it up in front of Miles. He shouldn't have brought anything to do with the Emma thing up in front of him, even if he had managed to keep her name out of it. Now Miles knew that he'd imagined up a kid, whether he knew with whom or not. That meant he might bring it up again and Bass didn't want that.

Miles wasn't a hundred percent convinced by Bass's words about being okay, but he decided that if Bass wanted to drop the subject that he would. So, instead of trying to think of something to say, he went back to searching for the damn Easy-Bake Ovens so that they could get one and get out of there. He figured that the sooner they got out of there, the sooner Bass would hopefully stop thinking about his memories from delusions.


	8. Chapter 8

"Uncle Miles!" Charlie called out excitedly as she came barreling into the room to greet him. As soon as he was through the doorway, she got straight to business as she asked, "Did you bring it?" 

A grin formed on Miles' lips and he let out a chuckle at that. Ben, on the other hand, didn't seem quite as impressed with Charlie's blunt approach as his brother was. 

Bass stepped through the door a second or two later with a wrapped up box that the other man had made him carry as Miles told her, "Sorry kiddo, I forgot it at home." 

He shrugged at her in a 'what are you gonna do' way as she eyed the box in her honorary uncle's hands that looked suspiciously Easy-Bake Oven sized. 

"Sure you did," Charlie insisted sarcastically. 

Miles pretended to notice the box for the first time then, fooling absolutely no one in the process, as he said, "Oh, wait a second. That's right, I made Bass carry it." 

"Funny," Bass commented sarcastically, although he did crack a small smile at that. 

Meanwhile, Charlie was practically bouncing up and down with excitement as she reached her arms up and made grabby hands at the box. 

"Charlie," Ben warned. 

Bass looked up at him then and felt a lump of guilt in his throat over what had happened to the Ben of a different world because of him. He swallowed, hoping to get rid of the lump, before turning his gaze back down at Charlie who had none too eagerly stopped grabbing for her severely belated birthday present. 

"Happy birthday, kid," Bass told her as he handed her the box, which she practically dropped in her excitement as she collapsed to the floor to sit while she unwrapped it. 

Even though she knew exactly what it was going to be, she still tore the wrapping paper off as if it were some kind of race where she had to get to what was inside within a certain time limit or else she wouldn't be able to keep it. Shreds of paper rained all over the floor as she did so, much to her father's dismay. 

"Dad, look!" Charlie announced happily as soon as she had managed to get the wrapping paper off enough to show that it was in fact the Easy-Bake Oven that she had asked for. 

"Nice," Ben told her with a grin. "Now what do you say?" 

Charlie beamed up at her set of uncles as she told them, "Thank you!" 

* * *

In the car on the way home, Bass remained silent, seemingly trapped in his thoughts, for long enough that Miles was starting to get concerned as he glanced between the road and his friend and asked, "You in there?" 

"Yeah," Bass responded, although he still remained drifted off somewhere else for several minutes longer before he finally spoke up again. "There's something I have to tell you." 

Something in his friend's tone put Miles on full alert as he questioned, "What?" 

Bass braced himself for a moment, then continued staring out the window as he hesitantly responded, "I slept with Emma." 

The car was dead silent for several seconds before Miles finally let out a laugh. Bass tore his gaze away from the window then as he turned around to glare at the other man. 

"You think this is funny?" He asked incredulously. Worrying about whether or not he should tell Miles when he really wanted to talk to him about the whole situation had been weighing on Bass's mind for the last several days and now that he'd finally admitted the secret he had been hiding for years, all Miles could do was laugh at him. 

"You scared the hell out of me, Bass. I thought you were going to tell me something serious," Miles insisted. 

"This is serious," Bass argued as his frown deepened. 

"Come on, I'm not going to get mad at you for some delusion dream-sex you imagined having with my ex," Miles told him. 

"It wasn't part of the delusion," Bass insisted. His voice came out much quieter than it had been before and his gaze shifted down as he added, "It really happened... And she wasn't your ex at the time." 

Miles let out a chuckle once again at that. If he hadn't been driving, Bass probably would have hit him for that. Hell, before the crash had happened Bass probably still would have hit Miles, whether he was driving at the time or not. 

Instead, he settled on glaring daggers as he insisted, "Stop laughing, Miles. I'm not joking." 

"Statute of limitations is kind of up on that one, isn't it?" Miles questioned. "...Why the hell are you telling me this now anyways?" 

Bass fell uncomfortably silent again before he finally admitted, "Because she's the one I thought I had a kid with." 

"Oh." 

Miles was surprised that she had featured in Bass's delusions. Miles himself had barely thought about Emma in years, so he was surprised that Bass's mind seemed to have chosen her as one of the things to fixate on. 

Bass had been debating telling Miles about what had happened to the dream Emma as well, but he couldn't go through with it. He didn't think he'd be able to say the words. Besides, how do you tell your best friend that you imagined the girl you both loved getting killed because she was stuck in the middle of your stand-off? 


	9. Chapter 9

Rachel had the morning off work and Charlie was already at school, so Rachel had decided to surprise Miles with an early morning visit since they barely saw each other anymore and, even when they did, they were usually fighting about something to do with Bass.

"Where is he?" She questioned as she stepped into the apartment. She was hoping to avoid Miles' new roommate as much as possible to decrease the drama and get a little, long overdue, alone time.

"He's still in bed," Miles responded. "...Which is exactly where we should be at this hour."

Rachel let him lead her down the hall, but couldn't help but notice the light on in the guest room.

"I thought you said he hadn't gotten up yet," she commented as Miles led her into his room and she began to wonder if her, so far pleasant, visit might be cut short yet. "His light was on."

Miles closed the door behind them and insisted, "Don't worry, he sleeps with the light on now."

She was surprised when that hadn't come out accompanied with a joke, but was glad that the other man was probably still asleep. "Good."

* * *

Rachel lay in bed, snuggled up to Miles' side as his fingers lazily traced patterns along her arm.

"You know, you could stay over here some night when Ben has Charlie," he pointed out. "We don't have to sneak around like a couple of kids."

She was silent for a moment. Sure, the idea of actually spending the night with Miles instead of just coming over for a morning quickie while Bass was asleep appealed to her. What was much less appealing though was the idea of sleeping in the same apartment as Bass when she still couldn't quite shake some of the threats that he had made at her while he was still living in the mental institution. She didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same apartment as him, even in a separate room, and he still needed Miles as his babysitter so that created an unfortunate bump in the road for her and Miles' relationship.

She didn't want to start up another argument when they were finally having a nice visit though, so instead she finally smiled over at him and pointed out, "I'm pretty sure Charlie has dibs on getting a sleepover here before I do."

"Well then I guess we'll have to sneak around a little still," Miles murmured as he began to kiss along her neck. "And just not tell her in the meantime."

Rachel hated to ruin the moment, but knew that she had to as she pointed out, "I don't think I'm going to be sleeping over anytime soon either." He frowned at that. "I miss you, Miles. I do. But I can't sleep in the same place as him... At least not yet... But I've got the rest of the morning off."

His frown deepened a little further at that.

"Bass's got an appointment with his doctor in a little over an hour," he pointed out a little reluctantly. "And I've got to drive him."

Bass still wouldn't touch the steering wheel of a car since the accident, not that Miles could really blame him. Besides, Rachel felt a lot safer with the idea of Miles there to babysit him instead of Bass just driving around, slipping in and out of reality as he went.

"Do you at least have time for a little breakfast before you go?" She questioned.

* * *

Bass smirked as Miles walked into the kitchen, with a slightly rumpled Rachel at his side, as if it was something far more scandalous than Miles having his girlfriend over to his apartment.

There was a brief silence as Miles' headed for the fridge, while Rachel hesitated a couple of steps into the room with her arms wrapped around her waist.

"Good morning, Rachel," Bass offered up in an attempt at friendliness that only appeared to make her more uncomfortable.

She managed to give him a small nod. "Bass."

It wasn't exactly the warmest of conversations, but it was more than either of the men had expected and Miles was glad to see that Rachel seemed to be making an effort to get along... Or at the very least she wasn't spending her energy arguing with him and that was something.

"You got time for breakfast?" Miles asked her, shooting her earlier question back at her. She had said that she had the whole morning off, but he figured she might be looking for an out and it would be better to give her one than try to force the pair into coexisting until the tension between them bubbled over.

" _You're_ cooking?" She questioned in surprise.

"More like scavenging the fridge for something to eat," he admitted with a casual shrug.

"While that's a hard offer to refuse, I think I'm going to have to pass for today," she told him with a small smile. "I've got some other stuff I want to get done before I go in this afternoon."

"Alright," he responded. "I'll see you later then."

Rachel chanced a glance over at Bass, who was still eating his breakfast and not even trying to hide that he was blatantly watching them and following their conversation. She ignored that though as she headed over to her boyfriend and grabbed his face in one hand to pull him in for a kiss that might have been just a bit tamer than she would have preferred because of their current company.

Bass waited until the door to the apartment clicked closed behind her before he turned his attention over to his friend and commented, "Wow. You two and Charlie really would be the perfect little suburban family if it weren't for me, wouldn't you?"


	10. Chapter 10

Miles had brought Bass to a diner under the pretence that Bass needed to try some actual food if he thought poorly microwaved food was so great. Bass had fallen for that explanation right up until he followed his friend into the restaurant and froze halfway through the door at the sight of a familiar-looking face at one of the tables.

She wasn't the girl that he had fallen for all those years ago or the one that he had imagined getting killed when he'd gone back to Jasper. She was both older and younger than he remembered. Even with the differences, he knew it was her right away as he stared in shock at those eyes that he never could forget. She was gorgeous, alive, and sitting right there. She was everything that Bass wanted.

His mind was filled with questions for her and racing to come up with more as she smiled over at him and then he panicked. He didn't just make a fool of himself. He made a complete asshole of himself as, without a word, he turned around and walked right back out of there.

He got about two steps outside before Miles grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to stop. Bass turned around to face his friend and found that the prick had the nerve to look proud of his trap. Even if his eyes were all concern, Bass knew him well enough to see the smugness in the way he was holding himself.

"I did some digging," Miles told him. "And guess who moved to Chicago half a year ago?"

Bass wasn't interested in playing, so he just glared daggers at his friend and remained silent.

"Come on, you know you want to go talk to her."

"I am going to kill you," Bass threatened. "And you should be worried because apparently that's something I'm capable of now."

"No, it's not," Miles argued. "And she already saw us. She's expecting us. Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"She also saw me walk right the hell out of there the second I saw her," Bass pointed out. "And what? Do you expect me to just walk in there and play catch up? That'll be a great conversation. Hey, what's going on with you? Me? I'm certifiably crazy now. But, hey, do we happen to have a kid you haven't told me about?"

"I probably wouldn't start with that," Miles commented in an amused tone that only pissed his friend off more. "But if you want to find out if she has any kids now, then going in there and talking to her would be a good way to find out."

* * *

Bass followed Miles back in with his hands in his pockets and shoulders hunched. He knew that this was going to be painful. But at least if he made an ass out of himself and got an answer to the question that wouldn't get out of his head, he might be able to get Miles off his back for a while.

He hesitated beside the table, staring at her awkwardly, as he tried to force himself to do anything at all. Why couldn't he remember how to act like a normal human being anymore? What was wrong with him?

Emma shot Miles an accusing look as she commented, "You didn't tell him I was going to be here. Did you?"

"What? And ruin the surprise?" Miles questioned in an amused tone. "Of course not."

"You are such a dick," Bass muttered under his breath as his legs finally remembered how to move and he sat down in the booth, across from where Emma was.

Emma let out a small laugh at that and it was like he was launched back into high school, when he had used to do anything to make her laugh harder than Miles could. Of fucking course she still had this much of a hold on him. He couldn't just be over her and not have to worry about how much of an idiot he was about to make of himself.

It was clear that Miles was waiting for him to talk as he sat in utter silence, looking over at his friend expectantly. Bass really was going to have to get back at him for this later.

"So," he said, then cleared his throat a little. "I didn't know you were in Chicago, Emma. What made you move here?"

Not exactly the most interesting topic of conversation, but it had been a lot of years since he had last seen her. He didn't know how to talk to her anymore, so he resorted to making the kind of awkward small talk a person would make with an old acquaintance they suddenly found themselves alone in an elevator with.

"Nothing very interesting," Emma responded with a shrug. "I just wanted to move somewhere else and figured here's as good of a place as any. What about you guys?"

"Miles' family is here," Bass answered. He was still pissed at Miles for forcing him into this situation and he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to take a shot at him, so he added, "He's actually dating his brother's ex-wife now."

"Oh," Emma said, seeming not entirely sure how to react to that piece of information. "I guess that's nice. What's her name?"

"Rachel," Miles responded. An entirely unsubtle smirk formed on his lips as he added, "That reminds me, I should probably go call her."

He got up from the booth and glanced back between the pair, smirk still in place, then headed towards the door under the pretense of looking for somewhere quiet to make his call. The bastard was probably going to drag his absence out as much as possible and act like he had done Bass a favour afterwards.

Could he have been any more obvious about purposely leaving them alone?

"I see he hasn't gotten any subtler," Emma commented in an amused tone.

Bass let out a groan as he let his head fall against the table. This was not how he wanted to run into Emma, if he was ever going to. He had hoped when he saw her again that he'd be normal and not living in Miles' apartment, getting babysat twenty-four hours a day. He had hoped he would run into her on his own. Then again, maybe it was best not to go down the road of how things would occur in his mind, considering how the blackout world his brain had made up had ended for Emma.

"I made the mistake of telling him that we slept together while you two were dating," Bass told her as he reluctantly lifted his face from the table. "I thought he'd get mad, but I think this is worse."

"What? You're not happy to see me?" She teased.

"I'm a lot happier around you than around Miles," Bass grunted out.

"I doubt it," she commented. "I know what you two are like. You couldn't stand to live without him."

Well, she had that right. Thinking Miles was gone had literally driven him off the deep end.

"Yeah, he's a really great babysitter," Bass muttered under his breath.

"What does that mean?" Emma asked as her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Look, it's not that I don't want to see you," he admitted. "Because believe me, I really did want to see you. Miles at least got that right. But I'd just rather have gotten my shit together first. I mean, what am I supposed to say now? I don't have a job. I live with Miles. I don't exactly have a whole lot going for me right now."

Not to mention the fact that he wasn't entirely certain he had a stable grip on reality and he was dragging Miles down with him and tearing him from his family. But he wasn't going to touch that subject with a ten foot pole around her. He knew he was pathetic, but he still wanted to keep at least one shred of dignity somewhat in tact.

He had been avoiding her gaze, but she was silent for long enough that he looked up to judge her reaction and became annoyed as she smiled at him across the table.

"What?"

"I moved to Chicago because I couldn't stand to be around my family," she pointed out. "I hate my job, but I can't quit it because I can barely get by as it is. I don't have a whole hell of a lot going for me either. And I don't have many friends here, so it's not like I'm in a position to be picky about who I will and won't eat dinner with."

"I don't have a lot of those either," Bass admitted. He turned over his shoulder to look out the window at where Miles was still on his phone, or at the very least pretending to be. "Actually, he's the only one I've got right now. That's why I still have to put up with his shit."

"If he doesn't come back soon, then I'm ordering without him," Emma commented. "I'm sure you could figure out something that he'd want."

"Probably," Bass agreed. "What are you having?"

She opened her menu and glanced down at it again as she told him, "I don't know. I'm thinking of getting-"

Bass didn't catch her answer because he was too distracted by the picture on the top of one of the pages and had to cut her off to ask, "What in the hell is that?"

"What?" She asked as she glanced up to try to check where he was looking.

"That," he clarified as he pointed to the image of a dish that looked utterly disgusting. It was a wonder they were trying to sell it by including a photograph of it. Maybe he would get his revenge yet. "I was just going to order Miles a burger, but no. He's having that."

A smile formed on her lips as she pointed out, "I bet we can convince him to eat it."

She was probably right. Miles wasn't one to back out of a challenge, regardless of how disgusting it might be.

* * *

When the food finally came, Miles still hadn't returned. Bass knew that Rachel liked to talk, but this was starting to get ridiculous even for a conversation with her.

"I'll go get him," Bass told Emma as he slid out of the booth. "I wouldn't want his mystery slop getting cold."

Bass ducked his head out of the door and told his friend, "Congratulations, you stalled long enough that the food is here. Come eat."

"What the hell is this?" Miles asked as he sat down and looked at the plate in front of him. It wasn't quite liquid or solid and there were some hunks of distinctly grey looking mystery meat in it.

"Personally, I think it's probably better not knowing," Emma piped up.

"Exactly," Bass agreed in an amused tone. "The fun is in not knowing. It makes the flavour a real surprise. Hell, I bet even the texture will be surprising."

He was enjoying the fact that he had finally wiped that smug look of the other man's face just a little too much.

"You are never ordering for me again," Miles grunted out at his friend.

"What makes you so convinced it was me?" Bass asked as he pretended to be personally offended by the accusation.

"Because this is too stupid to be her doing," Miles retorted.

"Guess if you wanted to eat actual food you shouldn't have spent so much time on the phone with Rachel," Bass commented unsympathetically as he grabbed his burger off the plate. A smug smirk formed on his lips as he added, "At least it can't be worse than your cooking."


End file.
